"We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference.

He was also quoted in media reports emphasising that countries "can still change the course of this pandemic". As COVID-19 is more than just a public health crisis, but one that will touch every sector, "every sector and every individual must be involved in the fights.”

WHO defines a pandemic as a worldwide spread of a new disease. Before Covid-19, the H1N1 outbreak in 2009 was the last pandemic declared by WHO.